World War Two – Page 3

The British General Election – a view from the Czech Republic

Marshall Ivan Konev, surrounded by floral tributes © Ricky Yates

Today, I have been struck by the irony of David Cameron and his Conservative Party, ‘winning’ the UK General Election by over 63% of the electorate NOT voting Conservative, coinciding with the seventieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War – VE Day. The reason for the Conservatives ‘winning’ the election by gaining less than 37% of the vote, is because of the antiquated, absurd and completely undemocratic ‘first-past-the-post’ (FPTP) electoral system under which the election was conducted. The irony of this I’ll explain shortly.

Although I live in the Czech Republic, as a British citizen, I had the right to register to vote in this election but I chose not to do so. My reason for not participating was purely the FPTP electoral system. If I had chosen to register to vote, I would have been registered in the parliamentary constituency in which I last lived in the UK. In that constituency, even if the Conservative Party had put up a blue monkey as their candidate, s/he would have been elected. My vote would have been meaningless.

I’m sure many British politicians, particularly those in the governing party at any time, wonder why they are not held in very high esteem by the British public. There are many reasons, but one important one is that, as in yesterdays election, nearly two thirds of those who voted, have ended up with a government they didn’t vote for. David Cameron will claim that he has a mandate to govern the UK for the next five years. The reality is that he hasn’t.

Sadly, I see no likelihood of change in the foreseeable future. The Conservative Party in particular, but also the bulk of the Labour Party too, do not want to abandon the FPTP system because it makes it much easier to, sooner or later, be elected with a parliamentary majority enabling it to form a government, with only needing to persuade 35-36% of the electorate to vote for them. Both parties believe in what is proverbially known as ‘Buggins Turn’. Basically, neither party believes in real democracy.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, today is also the seventieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War – VE Day. It has been marked in ceremonies all across Europe, including one in London attended by David Cameron, as well as by two, now ex-party leaders 🙁 Here in the Czech Republic, it is a public holiday. My photograph taken this evening, once more shows the statue of Marshall Ivan Konev, surrounded by recently laid floral tributes. His Soviet Red Army troops liberated two thirds of what is now the Czech Republic, in April and May 1945.

However, just under thirteen years earlier, Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party, gained just over 33% of the vote in the German Election held in November 1932. But despite only having the support of one third of the German electorate at the time, he was made Chancellor a few months later. We all know far too well, the consequences that followed.

Whilst not suggesting that David Cameron will be like Hitler, the similarity of their respective levels of support is striking. When only around a third of the electorate actually votes for you, pushing through your favourite policies which are not supported by two-thirds of the electorate, is a recipe for trouble. Witness Margaret Thatcher and the poll tax.

Four years after the end of the Second World War, in 1949, the Western allies – France, the United Kingdom and the United States, returned what became West Germany, to self-rule. But they imposed a strict form of proportional representation into the electoral system, in order to prevent a recurrence of a minority imposing its will on the majority, as Hitler and the Nazi Party had done. There are plenty of other examples of the UK in particular, imposing truly democratic systems of proportional representation on former colonies, before granting them independence. The one I’m most familiar with is that used in Australia since becoming independent in 1901.

The truly democratic systems enforced on Germany post-1945, judging by its recovery from war damage and the strength of its economy today, have done it no harm but instead, an awful lot of good. But successive UK governments, be they Conservative or Labour, react in horror at the thought of adopting an electoral system such as that used in Germany. Why – is the question I ask?

One inevitable consequence of the General Election result today, is that in two years time, there will be an in/out referendum on whether the UK remains part of the European Union. If the UK were to withdraw from the EU, the economic consequences would be disastrous. But it would also affect my position as a British citizen, freely living and working in another EU member country as I do at present.

In 2007, when Sybille had major battles with German bureaucracy, trying to renew her passport as Sybille Yates, after our marriage in October 2005, she threatened to become British, before next needing to renew her passport again. However, if Cameron and his supporters, aided by UKIP, take the UK out of the EU, I may just have to consider becoming German!!!

A mini pilgrimage on Holy Saturday

On the afternoon of Holy Saturday, I was one of five members of the St. Clement’s congregation, who went on a mini pilgrimage. We met at Ládví metro station in the north-eastern Prague suburbs, and from there took the bus further out to Dáblice from where we began our pilgrimage walk.

Dáblice is a village which now adjoins the Prague conurbation. We climbed from the village centre, up onto Dáblický háj, a beautiful area of heathland and woods. At the top of the hill is an observatory and adjacent to it on a rocky outcrop, a cross.

From this point, there are wonderful views out across the northern Bohemian countryside.

The view from Dáblický háj © Ricky Yates

There followed a very pleasant walk through the woods along the top of the ridge before our path took us down to the main road that runs along the southern edge of the heath. Across the main road, lay the goal of our pilgrimage – a memorial to those who resisted fascism.

The memorial is situated on the northern extremity of what was once a military shooting range, created back in 1890. During the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, the whole area was isolated and surrounded by barbed wire fencing.

After the assassination attempt on 27^th May 1942, by Czechoslovak parachutists, on Reinhard Heydrich, the acting Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia, 463 men and 76 women were executed here within 33 days, including outstanding scientists, artists, politicians, soldiers, and four representatives of the Czech Orthodox Church who had provided asylum to the Czechoslovak parachutists in the Orthodox St`s Cyril & Methodius Cathedral. In total, it is believed that over 750 people were executed here during the years of Nazi occupation.

When we arrived at the memorial, we discovered that it is officially closed from March – September 2015, whilst work is carried, with the benefit of an EU grant, to renovate the site. Fortunately, it was fairly easy to get around the metal barrier across the entrance and being a holiday weekend, nobody was working there. It will obviously look nicer when the landscaping work is completed.

The names of the first people executed here, starting just three days after the Heydrich assassination attempt.

Quite clearly a new concrete wall has recently been created as part of the renovation work, to which the plaques with the names of all those executed, have been reattached.

In translation, the inscription reads: ‘Stop for a while …… our blood entered this soil but we have arisen again’.

Cross with crown of thorns © Ricky Yates

A new cross with a crown of thorns has been erected, quite appropriate for our Holy Saturday visit.

An interesting encounter and conversation at the end of a Christmas party

Our Christmas Party invite — Our Christmas Party invitation

On the evening of Wednesday 10^th December, Sybille and I attended the British Ambassador’s Christmas Party held at the Embassy in Mala Strana, one the nice little perks of being the Anglican Chaplain in Prague. Just as we were leaving the main reception room to go downstairs to collect our coats and head home, Sybille stopped to say ‘Hello’ and stroke Maya, one of the Ambassador’s two adopted Czech cats. Maya was occupying a vintage chair by the door, which had a rope stretched across between the two arms, to prevent humans sitting in it. But clearly such regulations do not apply to cats!

Standing nearby were two couples, with one of the couples speaking to each other in German. The German-speaking lady turned to watch Sybille speaking with the cat so I asked her whether she was German, (rather than Austrian or Swiss), and what was she doing in Prague? “My husband is the German Ambassador”, she said. Therefore as Sybille got up from speaking with Maya the cat, I said, “Sybille – meet your Ambassador!” Thus we met the newly arrived German Ambassador to the Czech Republic, Dr. Arndt Freiherr Freytag von Loringhoven, and his wife, Barbara.

This encounter, and the conversation that followed, touched on several issues I’ve written about previously in this blog. It also offered a most interesting insight as to how two Germans, and almost certainly how the government they represent, think about these issues.

Having discovered that Barbara was the wife of the German Ambassador, I duly explained who I was, not least because I was wearing my clerical shirt and collar. Most interestingly, she immediately said that, as a Roman Catholic, she was appalled by the treatment of Jan Hus at the Council of Konstanz . I was pleased that for someone who had only been in the Czech Republic for just under three months, she was very aware that next year would mark the 600^th anniversary of the martyrdom of Jan Hus and that major events were planned to mark the anniversary.

Having collected our coats, the four of us walked down through the narrow streets, from the British Embassy, to Malostranské námestí. Here we said, “Auf wiedersehn”, as Sybille and I stepped aboard Tram 12 and the ambassadorial couple continued their walk to the German Embassy and residence, a few streets away.

Earlier this year, I wrote a post entitled ‘Is Prague safe?’. In recent months, that post has become a frequent landing page for new arrivals to my blog, no doubt because it appears on the first page of Google for any enquiry about safety in Prague. If anyone wants further evidence as to how safe Prague is, please note that here was the Ambassador and his wife of a major European country, walking without any associated security entourage, through the streets of Prague, relatively late at night.

The bust of Sir Winston Churchill, along with my sister, brother-in-law & me © June Taylor

At bottom of the short driveway from the gates of the British Embassy to Thunovská, there is this bust of Sir Winston Churchill. My apologies to my sister June and brother-in-law Garry, that this is the only photo I have of the bust, taken with June’s camera by Sybille, during June and Garry’s visit to Prague in August 2012. Upon seeing the bust, probably for the first time ever that evening, Barbara the Ambassador’s wife said to me, “Why would they, (meaning the Czech people), celebrate Churchill. Surely he was responsible at the Yalta Conference in 1945, which divided Europe between East and West”.

After taking a deep breath, I replied by saying, “Because he led the United Kingdom during World War Two and defeated Hitler and his Nazi regime”. I, together with most Czechs, can clearly distinguish between the Third Reich and the current Bundesrepublik Deutschland – a distinction I’m sure the current German Ambassador would also want to make. Please forgive the aside, but I do wish that the British tabloid press could also make that same distinction, whenever England are playing football against Germany 🙁

I could have made the point that the bust was actually erected by the British, though I suspect it needed Czech approval. But the Czechs do admire and respect Churchill. There is a statue of him in námestí Winstona Churchilla (the joys of Czech grammar 🙂 ), in the suburb of Žižkov, on the other side of the Vltava.

Statue of Soviet Marshall Ivan Konev with floral tributes © Ricky Yates

But Barbara’s question, does raise the ongoing issue of what achievements of a certain person do you recognise and celebrate, and what other less attractive aspects do you therefore ignore. I have previously written about how the statue of Marshall Ivan Stepanovich Konev of the Soviet Red Army, still remains standing in Námestí Interbrigády, a large square on one side of Jugoslávských partyzánu, the main thoroughfare leading from our nearest Metro station at Dejvická, to Podbaba where we live. It is because he led the troops that liberated Prague from Nazi occupation, finally entering the city early on 9th May 1945, just a few hours after the unconditional surrender of all Nazi troops across Europe, had come into force. One could however, also point out that he also led the Soviet troops who crushed the Hungarian uprising in 1956!

Not everybody agrees with these distinctions, especially with the current actions of the Putin led government of Russia, who most Czechs regard as little different to the communist led Soviet Union which was responsible for the crushing of the 1968 Prague Spring. On the morning of 17^th November, ‘Struggle for Freedom and Democracy Day’, which this year marked the 25^th anniversary of the beginning of the Velvet Revolution that toppled the Soviet supported communist regime in Czechoslovakia, someone sprayed the statue of Marshall Konev with pink paint 😉 Unfortunately, before I could get a photo, the local authority got the paint removed.

This then brings me to the final point about our most enjoyable encounter and conversation that night. The next day, Sybille and I duly researched a little more about the new German Ambassador. He comes from German nobility – the name being a giveaway 🙂 He has also done two stints in Moscow which both he and his wife told us in conversation. But most interestingly, Sybille discovered through reading the German Wikipedia article about him, that between 2007-2010, he was Vice President of the Bundesnachrichtendienst, the German Federal Intelligence Service.

Both of us feel that with all this experience, the appointment of Dr. Arndt Freiherr Freytag von Loringhoven as German Ambassador to the Czech Republic, reflects the concern of the current German government about the intentions of Putin led Russia, towards the former Warsaw pact states of Central and Eastern Europe. I outlined these concerns in my post entitled, ‘The Ukraine crisis as seen from the Czech Republic’. Sadly, nine months on, those concerns remain and have become ever stronger.

A visit to Coventry Cathedral

The foundation stone of Coventry Cathedral © Ricky Yates

My apologies for not publishing anything new here for just over three weeks. There are two main reasons for this.

The first is that I’ve been continuing my promised ‘Summer clean’, now ‘Autumn clean’, of the Chaplaincy Flat – see my answer to question three in this earlier post. The latest place to receive my attention has been the kitchen. Every cupboard has been emptied, shelves and door-fronts cleaned, crockery and glassware which hasn’t been used for a long time, has been put through the dishwasher, and numerous foodstuffs well past their ‘use-by dates’, have been quietly disposed of. And then there was the cooker hood, the oven……

The second reason is that I spent the week from Tuesday 28^th October – Monday 3^rd November, in the UK, visiting my new grandson and his parents, and slightly belatedly celebrating my son Phillip’s thirtieth birthday. Whilst in the UK, I also re-visited the city where I was born and spent the first eighteen years of my life – Coventry, and in particular, Coventry Cathedral.

The laying of the foundation stone of the new Coventry Cathedral by HM Queen Elizabeth the Second on 23^rd March 1956, is the earliest memory that I have. For as well as laying the foundation stone that day, the Queen, along with the Duke of Edinburgh, also visited the Jaguar Car factory in Browns Lane, the street where I lived until I was ten. Thus, the royal motorcade drove past our house twice – first on its way to the factory and then the later return journey. At the time, I was just four years old and didn’t recognise the Queen on the first occasion she passed by, as I was looking for a lady with a crown on her head 🙂

Czechoslovak carved wooden crucifix © Ricky Yates

Sadly, since I last visited nearly ten years ago, an entrance charge of £6.00, (recently reduced from £8.00), has been introduced for the new Cathedral, unless someone just wishes to pray or attend a service. The friendly lady on the reception desk kindly asked me if I had come to visit or to pray, to which I replied, “Both!” When I further explained, aided by my business card, that I was the Anglican Chaplain in Prague, originally a native of Coventry and that I had contributed six old pence towards one of the nave windows, her response was, “Well I’d better then let you in for free!”

I was very pleased to discover within the new Cathedral, a Czech connection of which I was previously totally unaware – this carved wooden crucifix. The adjacent notice in the photograph below, explains about the artist who created it and gave it to the Cathedral.

Explanation of the Czech Cross © Ricky Yates

Chapel of Christ in Gethsemane © Ricky Yates

Other parts of the Cathedral were just as I remember them. One that I find particularly moving is the small side chapel of Christ in Gethsemane. The mosaic illustrates the prayer of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Take this cup of suffering from me”. Yet the chapel is screened by an iron grill in the shape of a crown of thorns, a reminder that Jesus was obedient to his Father’s will.

However, much as I like the new Cathedral, it is the ruins of the original mediaeval Cathedral – what remains following its destruction by Hitler’s incendiary bombs on the night of 14^th November 1940, that speak most powerfully to me.

'Father Forgive' © Ricky Yates — ‘Father Forgive’ © Ricky Yates

As I explained in a post in May 2012 when I appeared on Czech TV to speak about the fiftieth anniversary of the consecration of the new Cathedral, not long after the bombing raid that destroyed so much of the mediaeval Cathedral, the Provost made a cross from two of the charred roof beams and erected it behind the altar and had the words. ‘Father forgive’ carved on the east wall of the old sanctuary.

For me, this is such a powerful symbol of the Christian message of reconciliation. Reconciliation between God and humankind – but also, reconciliation between nations and peoples who have previously been at war with each other. Therefore, I end this post with the words of the Coventry Cathedral Litany of Reconciliation.

‘All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

The hatred which divides nation from nation, race from race, class from class,

Father Forgive.

The covetous desires of people and nations to possess what is not their own,

Father Forgive.

The greed which exploits the work of human hands and lays waste the earth,

Father Forgive.

Our envy of the welfare and happiness of others,

Father Forgive.

Our indifference to the plight of the imprisoned, the homeless, the refugee,

Father Forgive.

The lust which dishonours the bodies of men, women and children,

Father Forgive.

The pride which leads us to trust in ourselves and not in God,

Father Forgive.

Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you’.

The ruins of the original mediaeval Coventry Cathedral © Ricky Yates

Another insight into Czech life and culture

The rocks and forests of the Czech countryside © Ricky Yates

Yesterday, I officiated at the burial of ashes of two people, a husband and wife, into the family grave. Whilst this is something I would quite regularly do when Rector of a group of North Oxfordshire villages, this was the first time of doing so in just over six years of ministry here in the Czech Republic. I have also only conducted four funerals during that time, a reflection of the predominantly young age of the English-speaking expatriate population resident here.

However, although I conducted yesterday’s graveside service in English, it was very much a Czech occasion and was an illustration of several aspects of Czech life and culture. And because I want to protect the privacy of the family, I hope readers will forgive me for not referring to people or exact locations by name.

The existing family grave is located in the massive Olšanské Cemetery that lies in the Prague suburb of Žižkov. Whilst the cemetery is well-maintained by the local authority, like so much of Czech officialdom, it is not managed to encourage the practice of religious faith. Two things illustrated this.

The first was the attitude of the two cemetery staff who were present when we arrived at the grave. Whilst the grave had been opened and the appropriate hole dug, in true Czech bureaucratic style, the only thing that mattered to them was thoroughly checking the paperwork brought by the next of kin, the son of the deceased. Once they were convinced that the paperwork was in order, they just left us to it with a, ‘we’ll be back later to fill in’.

The second was the complete lack of provision for me. There was no chapel or vestry where I could robe & leave my belongings securely. Instead, aided by the eldest grandson of the deceased, who kindly held various things for me, I robed standing alongside a bench adjacent to a path running behind the family grave.

I have previously written about the Czech love of flowers which helps to keep innumerable flower shops and stalls in business. This love was very clearly in evidence with every family member arriving with a bunch of fresh flowers to lay on the grave. And I mean everybody, right down to the six great-grandchildren of the deceased.

However, it was what followed the graveside service which struck me as being so much part of Czech culture. The service was at 11.00 in the morning, so afterwards, everyone who attended was invited back to lunch. But lunch was not at the family flat in Mala Strana where I’d met the next of kin the previous day. Nor was it at a restaurant, not so far from the cemetery. No – we were all transported over thirty kilometres out of Prague into the Bohemian countryside, to a large three storey house – the family chalupa.

The house was built in the early 1930s, in a time that is now always referred to as ‘the First Republic’, when Czechoslovakia was an independent state between 1918-1938. The deceased couple were responsible for having it built.

The history of the house reflects the history of the nation. During the Second World War, when the country was occupied by the Nazis, there was a German military base nearby, so the house was commandeered to house a senior Nazi military officer. Then, following the communist coup of February 1948, the family were confined to the basement whilst the two floors above were occupied by others. Even after the Velvet Revolution of 1989 and the subsequent restitution of property laws, the family allowed a remaining ‘tenant’ to live in part of the house, until her death in the mid 1990s.

The son of the deceased gave a speech in which he recalled his childhood weekends and summer holidays, spent living in the basement and sleeping in a wooden ‘summer house’ in the garden. They were memorable times, despite the deprivation of the communist era.

And although he and his parents escaped to Switzerland in 1968, when he was in his late teens, and he, along with his wife and three of their four children, now live in England, this house in the Bohemian countryside is still the family home. Here, where his elderly uncle still lives, is where the soul of the family resides and was the only place where the lives of his late parents, who both lived into their nineties, could be properly celebrated.

The story of this family, could be told with some variations, by so many Czech families. The story also reflects the psyche of the wider Czech nation – that deep down Czech people believe that the soul of the nation is found in the forests, rivers and lakes of the Czech countryside. Even whilst we were eating our lunch yesterday, Má vlast, ‘My Country’ or ‘My Fatherland’ by Bedrich Smetana, was being played in the sitting room, music that encapsulates that very concept.